DeLorean Diary

What if you could travel through time? 

Recently, I started a little experiment. No time machine required. Just my email account. 

One evening, I was jotting down a few lines destined to be read by no one. And then I thought, wouldn’t it be fun if I could have them resurface in the future? So I put them in an email, clicked the “schedule send” button and picked a random date. 

Two weeks later, an email popped up in my inbox with the subject line: “Hello from the past!” I had completely forgotten I wrote this. My past self was bursting into my inbox like Kramer into Jerry Seinfeld’s apartment to deliver an unsolicited piece of wisdom. 

The email ended with an injunction: “Please send a lesson to future Florian.”

And like that, I started a conversation with myself through time. I’d load up a thought and just like Doc’s DeLorean, it would land in my inbox a few weeks later. 

There’s something peculiar about knowing your future self is the recipient of the words you write. I’ve kept a journal for seven years and it doesn’t quite elicit the same sense of responsibility. That feeling that you get to address your future you and perhaps slightly alter the course of their day.  

What would you write to your future self?